By Julia Johnson, Politics Reporter. Media: Washington Examiner
Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), a presidential candidate, slammed the Inflation Reduction Act, championed by President Joe Biden, on Monday, suggesting it should be called the “Inflation Creation Act.”
During an appearance on Fox and Friends, Burgum, a former tech CEO and businessman who has centered his 2024 campaign on the economy, said inflation under Biden has been “remarkable.”
“Interest rates [are] at a 22-year high, and inflation under Biden has been remarkable,” the North Dakota governor said. “An average family right now is paying over $700 a month more for their basic needs than they were when he took office. That’s $8,400 a year.”
“His energy policies are raising prices of every product. Raising the price of what it takes to heat your home and drive your car and run your tractor, and it’s also then destabilizing the world and empowering dictators, and it’s also not helping the environment get better,” Burgum added. “It’s wrong on every front.”
Asked what he would do differently, Burgum said, “Start selling energy to our friends and allies. Stop buying it from adversaries.”
This, he said, will come with other benefits. “If we do that, it’s actually great for the environment because America produces energy cleaner, safer, smarter, better than anywhere else in the world,” he explained.
“In terms of the economy on interest rates — we got to get the spending down,” he said.
Burgum further hit Biden’s signature infrastructure investments across the country. According to him, the money is not going as far as it should be able to. “Every bid we did this spring to build the road was 30% higher,” he explained of North Dakota.
“If you are a state and you can only build roads six months a year, you go, ‘I’ll build 70 miles of road instead of 100.’ So we could actually choke out all of the private sector, all the small businesses like Kevin is talking about, and the states will still be driving inflation because we’re out there hiring construction workers, steel, concrete, all those things to build the roads because of this infrastructure bill that was supposed be to the Inflation Reduction Act, but it’s actually the ‘Inflation Creation Act,'” Burgum said.
Burgum’s comments on Monday aren’t the first time the North Dakota Republican has referred to Biden’s hallmark legislation by this name. He also labeled it as such on the debate stage last week.
His criticism of Biden’s sweeping policy comes after the president said, “I wish I hadn’t called it that because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it has to do with providing alternatives that generate economic growth,” during a fundraiser event in Utah.
Discussion about this post